In 2022, Avonside Girls’ High School offered the Police Pathway Programme (PPP333) for the first time. We are the only school in Christchurch to offer this.

PPP333 was introduced as a response to the many ākonga who are interested in careers serving their country in the NZ Police, and other enforcement roles such as customs and the NZ Defence Force. This programme is a great starting point for these rangatahi.

The NZ police need their workforce to be more diverse to reflect the community they serve, so they were delighted that our multicultural school on the east side of the city was the first to lead this programme in Canterbury. We were very lucky to have great support from the dedicated and passionate Canterbury Policing Team in both sworn and non-sworn roles!

Most weeks NZ Police staff visited ākonga at school sharing their personal stories and talking about their work. We had visits from a fingerprint expert, dog handler, detective, 111 call taker and dispatcher, community constables, physical trainer, district commander and more. We heard stories from constables attending family harm incidents, undercover detectives trying to catch offenders, a commander working at the parliament anti-mandate protest, how to plan an interview with a suspect, the process of fingerprinting a crime scene and more. Many thanks to all the NZ Police staff who gave their time to support this programme! Special thanks to Lyall Bayliss who re-enacted an offender being apprehended by his police dog, Glenn Robertson who tested students against the physical fitness requirements, Steve Sibley for all his help with investigative interviews, and Natasha Rodley for being such a great support and arranging all the NZ Police guest speakers!

Part of the programme is building the physical confidence, fitness, strength, and agility to meet the NZ Police PAT recruitment testing. Students did a variety of physical activities such as parkour at Christchurch School of Gymnastics, swimming at QE2, running and team games some of which were run by Mal from Youthtown. Thank you to the fantastic trainers who supported our students!

In Term 3, ākonga learnt about and participated in community service projects such as boxing food at 0800 Hungry foodbank and helping with activities and students at Ferndale School every Friday afternoon. What a great “feel good” way to end the week! Thank you to 0800 Hungry and Ferndale School for allowing us to be part of this mahi.

Thanks to all the staff at Avonside Girls’ High School who supported this programme, especially Natalie Guinness and Tanya Clegg! Congratulations to all the students who stepped out of their comfort zone and gave this new programme a go! You have gained some great knowledge and skills. We hope to see some of you serving our community in The NZ Police in the future.

Best wishes for the future! Keep up the fitness training and being of service to the community.

Mauri tū mauri ora.

An active soul is a healthy soul.

Ngā mihi nui, 

Rachel Best 

PPP333 teacher